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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Total Spent: $600.00| Rating: 9

Pros:

VC works well, wide zoom range

Cons:

AF misses occasionaly

My initial shoot with this lens was done under very bad conditions and I down-rated this lens. I have since shot under better conditions and now really like it.....so I am changing my post. This lens performs very well for the cost and range that it covers. It also passed an inadvertent drop-test as I caught my camera strap on my chair and pulled the whole camera and lens off my desk onto a hard floor. It hit right on the lens cap but I can see no visual damage and it still works perfectly.

The lens is probably the best of the available wide to super zooms and is definitely a keeper.

Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Total Spent: $620.00| Rating: 9

Pros:

To a non-pro, this is the lens to have!

Cons:

For the pro, stick with the "simple" basics.

I give this one a 9 across the board. Truly a all-in-wonder lens for the basic photographer. It will satisfy your needs if you travel and don't require pro DSLR shots but require compact size and lots of functionality.

This lens does exhibit minor IQ flaws at each end and doesn't perform as fast as higher class glass such as Canon's L series.

Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Total Spent: $680.00| Rating: 8

Pros:

Fairly sharp, very extensive focal length range, VC works well

Cons:

Somewhat expensive, feels cheap

Most people probably want a superzoom and want to get the best one. For my style of photography the the Tamron 18-270VC comes out on top.

First: all super zooms are compromizes and do not match the quality of a shorter range zoom and not even close to primes. They make up for it by giving the user a wider range of possibilities when taking pictures without the need to carry a great deal of equipment and without switching lenses. They are very useful for just walking around on a sunny day. For low light, other lenses are generally better suited.

Sharpness: Nikon and Sigma were soft on the telephoto end. Canon was soft on wide end. Tamron was pretty good through the range to a little soft at 270mm. The Canon is notable for being very sharp at 200mm. 28-300 is sharp at the wide end, but soft at telephoto.

CA: Nikon and Canon clear winners here.

Contrast: Tamron and Sigma were better than Canon and Nikon but all were OK.

Build: Nikon, Canon, Sigma, Tamron. The Tamron feels very cheap. The Nikon feels very well built. Tamron 28-300, focus was off and the lens telescopes when pointed down. Very annoying.

For sports, the Canon is the best choice because of the fast focus and very good telephoto. The Nikon and Sigma will disappoint because of the lack of sharpness. The Tamron is a little slow at focusing.

For me, because of the sharper wide angle and the good bokeh, I like the Tamron and can live with the cheap build. For telephoto I generally like to blur the background so the lack of sharpness in the corners is not much of an issue.

Tamron 28-300VC. Not as good overall as the 18-270, but does offer a super-zoom solution on full-frame.

Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Total Spent: $585.00| Rating: 6

Pros:

Excellent Range, decent quality particularly considering the range

Cons:

Heavier than Nikon 18-200mm, slow focusing, particularly in low light

My typical lens use is a Nikon 16-85 VR (I love this lens) and a Nikon 70-300 VR on a D40, however for a trip I wanted to avoid carrying extra lenses.

The quality of construction is less than my typical lenses. It is not poorly constructed, but only a small step over the standard Nikon kit lens. The zoom is does not have a linear feel, but has heavier feel up to a detent ~100mm and then becomes quite a bit lighter in use. Lens creep is a problem when carrying with a strap so the lock is a necessity. Autofocus is slow when compared to my Nikon 16-85 lens. The manual focus is very, very light in use. In high movement, high light situations (like in a boat) in many instances the Tamron would not autofocus over 100mm at all with my D40 and the VC would often 'snap' visibly. In low light over 50mm the autofocus is very slow and often takes multiple tries to get a lock even with an SB-600. Autofocus over 200mm is noticeably slower at well over 1 second even in good light in less than high contrast situations. Maybe this would perform better with something other than a CAM-530 AF system.

Never having used the Nikon 18-200 VR lens much to develop a great comparison, the Tamron is a bit less than what I was searching for. While it may have greater reach than the Nikon equivalent, it is quite a bit heavier and appears in passing to have more issues with developing a moderately quick autofocus lock in comparision. I would say that the pictures were of high quality (sharper than my limited experience with the Nikon 18-200). I did miss a number of shots due to slow autofocus that I feel should have been available.

Overall I will probably hang onto this lens for the limited number of situations where one lens must cover all (the quality of shots when the AF works is good). However in low light, this lens is not an acceptable substitute for something shorter and faster. This lens is not a bad travel lens (although it is a bit heavy), but careful consideration must be taken for its use. AF is fairly slow at anything over 100mm which is the compromising experience with such a wide ranging zoom. Pictures are of good quality and build quality is acceptable but not at the Nikon 18-200 levels.

Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Total Spent: $592.00| Rating: 9

Pros:

15x zoom range. Vibration Compensation.

Cons:

Short manual focus adjustment. Not USM

I've only had the lens a couple of days but already love it.
I have a Canon 40D on which I've used a Canon 18-55 and a Canon 75-300 III USM.
The Tamron's vibration compensation works a treat. It takes about 1 second for the VC to be fully up and running.
Focusing is not USM but it's good and reasonably quiet.
Zooming is slightly stiff between 50-100 but no big deal.
Sample shots on http://www.flickr.com/photos/dave-smart/